


Why is my reflection Someone I don't know?

by OnlyOneWoman



Series: A Simple Man [4]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: A gift of a necklace, Amends for the real Ned Low, And for Tadhg Murphy who deserved more to his role, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Family Loss, Fatherhood, Grief/Mourning, He's sick and twisted but full of love, Historical Accuracy, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, M/M, Memories, Misandry, Ned Low POV, Ned Low has feelings, Psychological Trauma, Rage, Reflection, Regret, Twisted, Unexpected feelings, Widowed, at least a bit, husband and wife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 10:38:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21269678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyOneWoman/pseuds/OnlyOneWoman
Summary: "Low was born a dodgy character, but he lost his whole family. They're all he cared about, and I played his sadism through that. He's sick and twisted but full of love."Tadhg Murphy on playing the role of Ned Low in Black SailsWe were never told Ned Low's backstory and that irked me a lot when I read about him. He was gruesome as hell with men, but not towards women or children and it's a pure shame an otherwise excellent show just used him as a throw-in villain that was almost comically easy to hate, while so many other characters were so human and diversed.This, I guess, is my attempt to give him some justice and add the human parts Tadhg Murphy obviously put into his role, only had no scenes that would give the audience the history and understanding HE had. Title stolen from Mulan's "Reflection".





	Why is my reflection Someone I don't know?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rising_Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rising_Phoenix/gifts).

She had her mother’s eyes. Dark grey, like the fine velvet noble women dressed in. The kind of fabrics neither his wife nor his daughter would ever dress in. The grey blanket little Edward had been swept in was cheap, as was the coffin. The dead don’t need much, after all. Elizabeth’s were longer, wider, but her dress was her second best. Not her wedding dress though, that one was saved for another wedding Ned would never attend, if it came to happen at all.  
  
He’d allow himself to think of his wife and son in the evenings before he fell asleep. Not for long, of course. But for a few short moments, Ned would dream himself back to a time when he was someone else and a woman with rosy cheeks and the shawl she’d embroided little blue flowers onto, the same ones she stitched on the blanket as her belly swelled for a second time. Ned had stopped thieving by then, not wanting to make his wife, daughter and the son he hoped for, a widow and fatherless.  
  
The night of the last birth had been long and gruesome, Ned remembered thinking about how God, if He loved his creation at all, had to make the process of delivering a new human being into the world, so painful and dangerous and for a moment, when his sweet Eliza had screamed in agony, sweat breaking onto her face and when little Elizabeth had finally arrived, Ned had smiled at the perfect miracle his wife had brought to him, as Eliza herself was barely conscious.  
  
For almost four days he’d hoped and prayed. He wasn’t much of a praying man, but he prayed then as the midwife had done what she could and there was no doctor they could afford. God didn’t care and while Ned honestly wasn’t surprised for his own sake, a God who would rob an innocent girl of her mother and brother like that, wasn’t one Ned would bow to. The only regret he had, was leaving Elizabeth behind, although it was a wise decision because he was not inclined to remarry and being the daugther of either a hanged thief in Boston or a rigger on a ship was no life for a little girl.  
  
Ned didn’t pray anymore, but he would think of the family he’d lost, trying to capture the soft fuzz on his son’s head, the brown braids swinging around Elizabeth’s head as she ran around, the little rascal she was, and then, lastly, he would remember how Eliza smiled at him, her big, grey eyes full of laughter, the way her long, brown hair fell down to her waist as she took her bonnet off at night… He still had it, and a lock of her hair, hidden amongst his few treasured possessions.  
  
Little Elizabeth had her mother’s eyes, yes, and Ned was determined not to give his only daughter her father’s heart and mind. He’d always regret leaving her, but it was one of few acts of decency he’d done in his life and not that Ned for one moment thought it would save any shatter of what soul he might still possess, but a least it had saved his little one from an early grave at sea. She would never know about what her father had become and Ned would never see her eyes again outside the dreams.  
  
It had been five days since the meeting with the man Ned now knew was Captain Flint’s quartermaster and the one-eyed captain fingered restlessly on the necklace he wore in wraps around his wrist. That memory was sweeter.  
  
Ned closed his eyes, shutting out the loud noises from his crew outside the captain’s cabin, trying to replace them with the memory of other loud sounds from the most unexpected source. He’d never liked boys and the one time a member of his crew had been found raping a young boy at a prize, Ned had shot him on sight. The boy too, but considering the state of the child, that had been a mercy.  
  
He felt no remorse when taking the life of an adult man and he relished the torture of those trying to save themselves by selling out their own. There’d been a man once, a _gentleman_ as the fuckers in wigs and heels were called, who’d offered Ned the cook’s daughter if he would let his own one live. Ned had cut the man’s tongue out, fried it and served it to the nobles before killing them all, except for the women and children. He’d taken them onboard, treated them well and put them ashore in a harbor, safe and sound considering the circumstances.  
  
He rose from the chair at the desk, walking towards the dresser and the small, cracked mirror his cabin boy had decided should hang there. It was from a prize and as little as Ned cared about humans in general, he’d not found it him to bring the damn thing down, as the dutiful cabin boy who was as good a thief as a lookout – eyes sharp as an eagle, mind you – had given it to him as a gift from the first hunt he’d been a part of.  
  
You had to keep the crew pleased, make your men feel good about themselves instead of ashamed and resentful and that’s why Ned now had to pass the mirror often enough to get a reminder of exactly how ugly he was.  
  
The face starring back at him from the clean piece of glass, was a reflection of someone else than the man who’d married Eliza Marble. Something the woman with the grey eyes would turn away from in disgust and Ned was a lot of things but not a liar. He wouldn’t blame her, yet still he found no regret for his actions. He’d searched for it, only to find nothing but a pitch of darkness, void of anything but the rage. No tears, no pity, only a need for revenge. On God, on men, because it was the man who was created to His image, not the woman and Ned had no quarrel with them. They should, for all he cared, be grateful to be made into widows, being spared another deadly childbirth from their useless husbands.  
  
Ned turned his back to the mirror. He did not reckognize the face in it anymore. It was a reflection of a stranger, something soulless only disguised as a man. What little feelings he still had, were shallow at best, the only pure one left being the love for a daughter, a son and wife who would never know the monster he’d become.  
  
His gaze fell on the piece of jewlery around his wrist. Billy Bones. William Manderly? Two sets of names for a man who Ned found to be less than deceitful. The casual questions about Flint and the men closest to him weren’t suspicious. Knowledge was power and every man and woman setting foot in Nassau, hungered for news. Who was in power, who’d fallen from grace. Who’d fled, who’d died, who’d risen from the pits?  
  
So, it seemed like Ned Low had taken the infamous Captain Flint’s quartermaster – or first mate, depending on how accurate you wanted to be – to bed. Bones had been lost in a storm, then captured and tortured by the English who, being the arrogant cunts they were, had offered a deal and let the man free, sincerely believing he’d turn on his captain for a pardon given by the same kind of bastards who’d pressganged him. Yes, Ned Low had his own way of finding out the truth and pirates were the worst at gossip, far more so than old ladies or even whores. The information he’d gotten about Billy Bones, certainly hadn’t clouded the memory of their night together.  
  
Leaving a necklace and walk away in silence before dawn, was a move Ned hadn’t expected. The sneaking away in silence, sure, but the gift? Had Ned been a romantic, perhaps he’d tried to find some meaning behind the exquisit little feather carved out in steal, but the gesture was a lot more intriguing than the piece of jewlery.  
  
_It’s alright. There’s no rush, my sweet…_  
  
Had another man – or woman for that matter – said that in the midst of a coupling, Ned might’ve sliced his throat. He’d done it for less. He was a sick and twisted man, oh, he knew that and had chosen to embrace it, rather than being stamped out by it.  
  
He’d made his woman with child,_ he’d_ put her through the agony of childbirth. _He_ was the reason she was dead, along with their son, for had he not planted his seed in her again, she’d still be alive and he would still be a man with a heart.  
  
Ned looked at the necklace, a fine handiwork and even more curious gift. Slowly, he unwrapped it from his wrist and put it around his neck instead, turning to the mirror again. What had Billy Bones seen in his face that night? Not a monster, surely. The memory of his kisses, of how goddamn gentle the man had been, was all but harrowing, because Ned did not reckognize the man reflected in Billy Bones’ gaze in the mirror, nor the tug in the place where he thought his heart no longer was.  
  
And for the sake of Elizabeth, both the living and the dead, and the Edward who’d been spared his father’s life, Ned hid the knobbly thing under his shirt, letting the small piece of metal itch onto his skin. He would carry it, not as a prize or a pride, but as a reminder of what he’d lost and would never get back. Hell would open up for him when his time came and Ned would not defend himself, because he wasn’t the kind of man who deceived and if Billy Bones would then join him there, well, then Ned would open his arms for him.


End file.
